Personal Holidays

[HyeJinx1984]

Just to poke at your personal holiday... why cant we respect them all the time? and why must we have to do anything special to show it? It in your mind and your spirit, the important thing isnt fasting, or doing something to show.. it is how you sincerely feel. I can fast for years, it may not make a difference mentally and spiritually, but i may not fast at all and I can allready say i have the respect forthose who died...

I never said you shouldn't think about it all the time, you should... just like, if you're a christian you should always "walk with god"... but that doesn't mean you can never walk out the church doors. Also, yes, this will start as me doing it by myself, but the idea of these kind of things is that, hopefully they will spread. Aside from being a historic holiday, having a tradition such as this, which would be, in evitably followed by a large feast, is just another way to bind a scattered people. That's one of the points of having holidays and traditions.

[Hayq]

I think it is to feel how they felt during that time. A simple memory will do.

[ArmoBarbi]

P, I love the logic, but Hayq has a point as well.

We eat every day, and want this day to be special. We want to make ourselves feel like they did on this day. We dont mind, as Im sure you dont either, suffering some hunger pains and a headache out of respect.

[thedebutante]

One of the things that makes a culture unqiue is their own individual holidays. However, aside from January 6th, September 21st and April 24th, we don't really have any days of import, and even on THOSE days we don't really do much different. Then I thought to myself "Why do I need someone else to say "OK, today is a holiday, you must do this this and this because it's tradition"?

So, although some may ridicule me, I think it would be good idea to begin a few personal holidays that each of us can only hope will catch on. For example, even though it's 4 months away, I've decided to fast this April 24th, and every one from now on, out of respect for the starvation and suffering of our people. I may be the only one, but it'll be my own personal holiday...

The Armenian Students Association of Stanford University (under the leadership of co-founders alex vartan and chris guzelian, both awesome people!) has started a non-profit organization, see www.fastforarmenia.org. We fast on April 24 and donate the money we would have used for food to some educational project in Armenia. We started this last year but the timing was off and we didn't get as big as we will this year. I will remind you guys again when Aprill 24 is around the block.

[thedebutante]

Have you heard of the Fast Armenia thing... I'm not sure exactly what but there is a group based in Cali I think that organizes an annual Apr. 24 fast with procedes going to Armenia or something. I can't remember the web address but I was recently there.

This is exaclty what I'm talking about. Refer to my previous post. We got most of the Armenian churches around the US to distribute our postcards and remind people about the event. I remember this very well because I had to proof read them 5 min before they were due in the printing place. haha

[thedebutante]

Im not a big believer in procedes going where we mean for them to go. Everything Ive heard from Hayastantsi makes me feel like they dont even believe that people are trying to help them sometimes. I sent a care package to a relative there last month, personal is the only way to go.

I will fast as well.

We made sure that all of the money went to 2 high schools in armenia and helped pay for text books for all of the kids.

[HyeJinx1984]

Like I said in my original post, I knew some of you would ridicule me for this and it happened. Oh well. If you don't see why someone would do this, then don't do it yourself. I have my reasons and I hope others with enough insight do as well.

As for debutante's posts, that's a wonderful idea! do remind us againt in fouyr months

[nairi]

How the hell can you feel what they felt?

I agree with Pyunik on the immorality and pointlessness of fasting for a "cause" like this. I'm not sure I agree with Pyunik's solution to this dilemma, if only because I think all these "charity events" (let's fill our own pockets) are immoral and pointless.

Speaking of charity, how low is it to spend millions of pounds/dollars or whatever to make a show to attract viewers to pay for some charity cause or another? Have we lost our ideals?